Monday, March 4, 2013

Shooting the Shit on Anne Hathaway

Must I? Yeah, it pays!

The Real Anne Hathaway
Restrained? Anne Hathaway? I mean, really, there are those who believe she took some kind of  rock ‘n’ roll doctor’s prescription cocktail of  something like Ritalin and Demerol, but I think that would be unkind. Okay, I confess I embarrass easily and the sheer biblical drama of  her  collected speeches from the Golden Globe, BAFTA and SAG awards for best supporting actress in Lés Miserablesn had me holding my breath. Having been the subject of a thousand gags  by Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, David Letterman, Joan Rivers, Bill Zwecker about the manner in which said thespian wears her Pittsburgh-sized heart on her sleeve, the lack of shrill desperation in her gratitude-besotted speech was almost subtle to the point of poignancyncompared to its predecessors.

Prone to throwing instantaneous pity-parties when discussing her disastrous gift at finding, dating and even marrying a veritable inventory of scores of  rogues, pseudo-aristocracy and plain old  con-artists at the expense of her own  thespian kind, Anne has tended to unburden herself repeatedly at the wrong place at the wrong time.  Well, at least according to Anne that  is.

Her four year affair with one Raffaello Follieri saw him sentenced to five years in federal prison for fraud, conspiracy and money-laundering. After their split, Hathaway didn’t lose a step in between the hand-wringing and tears shared on the usual round of talk shows. Her  personal drama definitely didn’t  interfere with her work as she received an Oscar best actress nomination for her role in Rachel Getting Married. Now involved with Hollywood wheeler -dealerAdam Shulman, Hathaway claims to be  as trusting as ever. “It takes a minute for me to let my guard down, but once I do and I get to know someone, I’m very open, very trusting. Some might say too trusting.” Yet, for those who love her doe-eyed, half-frothy goo-goo good days persona, there’s the inverse dump-truck demeanor, it’s all in a good cause. The woman just wants to be liked!!!

Was she good in Les Miserables? Well, not  if you’re a snob like me and love Victor Hugo’s novel. Beyond Hugo spinning in his grave, however, there really is the truth that Fantine is not the Audrey Hepburn-Lite gamin with huge, beautiful American gravestone teeth Hathaway envisions, but more some kind of busty, sexy semi-naïf with the chops and physical architecture of, say. a Helena Bonham-Carter.

If, as she kept insisting on so many of her cameos on the Monday morning shows, Hathaway really does genuinely want to be taken seriously, she needs to  learn something about  integrity  and self-censorship from the woman she has described as her role-model , Meryl Streep. Indeed, for those who develop amnesia vis-à-vis watching  the celebrity ring-around-the-roses Hathaway actively participates in, there’s the mini-scandal involving her arrival her arrival in a skintight dress celebrating her role as cat Woman. With these photos on  the net faster than  Janet Jackson's nipple or Britney Spears’ shaved vagina, Hathaway then had the, umm, moxy to use the press and the wardrobe malfunction to draw attention to such social issues as a  child prostitution, sex trafficking the importance of being a vegan. Who would have thought one might take a moral stance on a wardrobe malfunction? Indeed, the cocky actress noted that her character in Les Mis was also, despite her innate goodness,  swept away into the nightmarish world of the sex trade.

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